Reckless (Free Preview) (17 page)

Brother.
 
Sister.

The lilies
were already closing in the first rays of the sun.
 
Jacob saw none of the other Fairies as he
returned to the boat, but the froth drifting on the lake heralded that soon the
water would give birth to another.

Will was
nowhere to be seen as Jacob rowed back toward the lake's shore, but Clara was
asleep between the willows.
 
She woke
with a start as he pushed the boat ashore.
 
After the beauty of the Fairies, her tired face resembled a wildflower
beside a bouquet of lilies.
 
But she
didn't seem to mind the leaves in her hair, or her dirty clothes.
 
All Jacob saw on Clara's face was relief that
he was back — and fear for his brother.
 
"Your brother will need her.
 
And you will, too."
 
Fox had once again been right.
 
She always was, and luckily this time he had
listened to her.

She came out
from under the willow branches, her fur bristling, as though she knew exactly
why he'd returned only now.

"That was
a long night," she said testily.
 
"I'd started checking the fish to see if there was one that looked
like you."

"I'm
back, aren't I?
"
Jacob retorted.
 
"And she'll help him."

"Why?"

"Why?
 
Does it matter?
 
Because she can.
 
Because she doesn't like
her sister.
 
I don't really care,
as long as she does it."

Fox stared
across the lake, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
 
Clara, however, looked so relieved that all
the weariness vanished from her face.

"When?" she asked.

"Soon."

Fox could tell
from his face that there was more to it, but she kept quiet.
 
She knew she wouldn't like the whole
truth.
 
Clara was too happy to notice any
of this.

"Fox
thought you'd forgotten about us."
 
Will stepped out from under the willows, and for an instant Jacob
thought he'd stayed too long on the island.
 
The jade had darkened.
 
It merged
with the green of the trees.
 
The world
behind the mirror had finally turned Will into a part of it.
 
It had sown its seed in his flesh, and now it
stared at Jacob with golden eyes, gripping his brother in its fangs.
 
But he would free him with the same weapon
the Mirrorworld had used against him:
 
the words of a Fairy.

"We have
to find a rose," Jacob said.

"A rose?
 
That's
it?"
 
The jade face was
impassive.
 
So familiar
and yet so strange.

"Yes, it
grows not far from here."
 
And then, brother, you will sleep, and I'll
have to find the Dark Fairy.

"You
can't just make it disappear."
 
The
way Will looked at him!
 
As if he'd
forgotten and yet remembered everything that had driven them apart.

"Can't I?
"
Jacob replied.
 
"I know that she can help you.
 
Just do what I tell you, and everything will be all right."

Fox wouldn't
take her eyes off him.
 
They were saying,
What
are you trying to do, Jacob Reckless?
 
You are scared
.

So what, Fox
?
he
wanted to reply.
 
It's a
feeling I've gotten quite used to by now
.

29

In The Heart

They rode
northward along the lakeshore.
 
Time
drowned in the scent of the blossoms, in the light breaking on the water, and
for the first time Clara felt ready to forgive this world for all the fear and
all the gloom.
 
Everything would be all
right.
 
Everything.

Jacob soon
turned his back to the lake.
 
The horses
sank deep into the vines of the brambles and the fronds of the ferns.
 
Above them the leaves were again turning
yellow.
 
A cool wind rushed through the
branches, and beyond the trees Clara could already see the valley where the
Unicorns grazed.
 
They were still far,
barely visible in the mist that hung between the mountains.
 
But their dead kin lay at Clara's feet in the
yellow grass.

Their
skeletons were everywhere, moss and grass between their ribs, spiderwebs
spanning their hollow eye sockets, the white horns still on their bare-boned
foreheads.
 
The
Unicorns' graveyard.
 
Maybe they
came
her to die because it was easier under the canopy of
the branches, or because in death they sough to be near the Fairies.
 
Vines with tiny white blossoms wove their tendrils
through the bleached bones, like a final salute from the Fairies to their
faithful guards.

Jacob
dismounted and approached one of the skeletons.
 
A single red rose was growing out of its chest.

"Will,
come here."
 
He waved his brother to
his side.

Fox ran under
the trees and peered toward the Unicorns, her muzzle raised in the breeze.

"I smell
Goyl."

"So?
 
Will's right behind you."
 
Jacob turned his back to the valley.
 
"Pick the rose, Will."

Will put out
his hand — and drew it back again.
 
He
looked at his jade-green fingers.
 
Then
he looked at Clara, searching her face for the one he had once been.

Please, Will
.
 
She didn't say it, but she thought it, again
and again.
 
Do what your brother says!
 
And here, among the flowers and the dead, for one precious moment, he
looked at her as he once used to.
 
All will be well
.

He picked the
rose, and Clara heard the woody stem snap.
 
One of its thorns pricked his finger, and Will looked in surprise at the
pale amber blood oozing from his petrified skin.

He dropped the
rose and rubbed his forehead.

"What is
this?" he said, faltering and looking at his brother.
 
"What have you done?"

Clara reached
out to him, but Will flinched away from her, stumbling over one of the
skeletons.
 
The bones cracked like rotten
wood under his boots.

"Will,
listen!
"
Jacob grabbed his arm.
 
"You have to sleep.
 
I need more time.
 
When you wake up, all this will be over.
 
I promise."

But Will
shoved him away with such violence that Jacob staggered back, out of the
shelter of the trees into the open expanse of the autumnal meadow.

"Jacob!
"
Fox yelped.
 
"Come back under the trees!"

The image
would stay with Clara forever.
 
Jacob, looking back.
 
And then the gunshot.

Such a sharp sound.
 
Like wood splintering.

The bullet
struck Jacob's chest.

Fox cried out
as he fell on the yellow grass.
 
Will ran
to him before Clara could hold him back.
 
He dropped to his knees next to his brother, calling his name, but Jacob
didn't move.
 
Blood stained his shirt
right above his heart.

The Goyl
appeared out of the mist like a bad dream, still holding the rifle.
 
He was limping, and his left arm seemed to be
injured as well.
 
One of his soldiers was
by his side — the girl Jacob had shot as she attacked Clara with her
saber.
 
Her uniform was still soaked with
her colorless blood.

Fox leaped at
them with bared fangs, but the Goyl just kicked her out of the way.
 
The vixen changed shape, the pain robbing her
of her fur.
 
Clara wrapped her arms
protectively around Fox as she cowered into the grass, sobbing.
 
Will
got
to his
feet, his face ablaze with rage.
 
He
reached the rifle Jacob had dropped, but he stumbled groggily, and the Goyl
grabbed him and pressed the gun to his temple.

"Easy
now!" he said while the She-Goyl pointed her pistol at Clara.
 
"I had a score to settle with your
brother, but we won't harm a hair on you."

Fox struggled
out of Clara's embrace and pulled the pistol from Jacob's belt.
 
The She
-Goyl kicked
it out of her hand while Will just stood there, staring down at his brother.

"Look at
him, Nesser," the Goyl said, roughly turning Will's face toward him.
 
"He really is turning jade."

Will tried to
ram his head into the Goyl's face, but he was too numbed.
 
The Goyl laughed.

"You're
one of us, all right!" he said.
 
"Even if you can't accept it yet.
 
Tie his hands!" he ordered the
She-Goyl.
 
Then he went over to Jacob's
body and examined him as a hunter would his prey.

"His face
looks familiar.
 
What's his name?"
he asked Will.

Will didn't
answer.

"Never
mind," the Goyl said, turning away.
 
"You Doughskins all look the same, anyway.
 
Round up the horses," he barked at the
girl.
 
Then he pushed Will toward Jacob's
mare.

"Where
are you taking him?
"
Clara barely recognized her
own voice.

The Goyl
didn't even turn around.

"Forget
him!" he said over his shoulder.
 
"He will soon forget you."

30

A Shroud of Red Bodies

The gunshot
wound looked much less harmful that the wounds Jacob had suffered when the
Unicorns tore open his back.
 
Back then,
however, Jacob had been breathing, and Fox had felt his faint pulse.
 
Now he was just still.

So much pain.
 
She
wanted to dig her teeth into her flesh just not to feel it anymore.
 
Her fur wouldn't come back, and she felt
exposed and lost as an abandoned child.

Clara was
cowering next to her in the grass, her arms clasped around her knees.
 
She shed no tears.
 
She just sat there, as if someone had cut out
her heart.

Clara was the
first to see the Dwarf.
 
He was wading
toward them through the grass, looking as innocent as if they'd caught him
picking mushrooms.
 
However, who else but
a Dwarf could have told the Goyl that the only way out of the Fairy realm was
through the Unicorn graveyard?

Fox wiped the
tears from her eyes and felt through the grass for Jacob's pistol.

"Stop!
 
Stop!
 
What are you doing?
"
Valiant yelled as she pointed the weapon at him.
 
He quickly cowered behind the nearest
bush.
 
"How could I know they'd
shoot him right away?
 
I thought they
just wanted his brother."

Clara got to
her feet.

"Shoot
him, Fox," she said.
 
"If you
don't, I will."

"Wait!
"
Valiant clamored.
 
"They caught me on my way back to the gorge.
 
What was I supposed to do?
 
Get myself killed as well?"

"And now?
"
Fox yelled at him.
 
"Come to plunder a corpse on your way back?"

"That's
outrageous!
 
I'm here to rescue
you!" the Dwarf retorted with genuine indignation.
 
"Two girls, all alone, lost and
helpless..."

"So helpless that we'll surely pay you to save us?"

The silence
answering from the bush was very telling, and Fox lifted the pistol again.
 
If only she could stop the tears.
 
They blurred everything:
 
the misty valley, the bush where the
treacherous Dwarf was hiding, and Jacob's lifeless face.

"Fox!"

Clara put a
hand on her arm.
 
A red moth had landed
on Jacob's punctured chest.
 
Another
landed on his brow.

Fox dropped
the pistol.

"Get away
from him!" she shouted, her voice drowning in tears.
 
"Go and tell your mistress he's never
coming back!"
 
She leaned over
Jacob.
 
"Didn't I tell you,"
she whispered, "not to go back to the Fairies?
 
This time it will kill you."

Another moth
landed on the still body.
 
More and more
of them fluttered out of the trees.
 
They
settled on him in such profusion that they looked like flowers sprouting from
his shattered flesh.